By Abbie Taylor
(Author’s Note: Our entire story is found in my memoir, “My Ideal Partner: How I Met, Married, and Cared for the Man I Loved Despite Debilitating Odds,” which can be downloaded from BARD and Bookshare, and purchased in print and eBook formats from Amazon and other online retailers.)
“Dear Abbie, I’m writing to ask for your hand in marriage,” the Braille letter from Bill Taylor stated.
I was in shock. It was January 2005, when I received that letter. For two years, Bill and I had been in a long-distance relationship, since we lived miles apart, he in Fowler, Colorado, and I in Sheridan, Wyoming. We met through “Newsreel,” an audio magazine where blind and visually impaired adults can share ideas, ask questions, and more. Now, after emailing and spending time on the phone and meeting in person a couple of times, thinking he just wanted to be friends, I couldn’t believe what my Braille-reading finger was telling me. I didn’t know what to think or do.
The next day over dinner with my father and grandmother, I brought up Bill’s proposal. Dad, who had also met Bill, was impressed, saying Bill was a “fine fellow.” Grandma was more reserved, telling me I shouldn’t marry someone I didn’t love. Because I thought Bill was also asking me to move to Fowler to be with him when we married, I decided to write him a Braille letter, telling him I’d spend time with him there the following summer to see if I would like living there and with him.
But before I had a chance to write that letter, he called me. When I told him my plan, he surprised me by saying he wanted to move to Sheridan. He was tired of living in Fowler, a small town where there wasn’t much to do, and wanted to live in a larger community. Not needing to start over in a new location made his proposal easier to swallow.
First, he wanted to visit me in Sheridan to see if he would like living there. I suggested he wait until summer when he wouldn’t have to worry about snowy travel conditions. He said he thought the roads would be OK by March. To me, that was rushing it. I could only hope I’d get my head around the idea of marrying him by then.
But by the time Bill arrived by bus in March, I still wasn’t sure about marrying him. He spent a week with me in my apartment, most nights sleeping on my living room couch. Every day, he kissed and caressed me and did nice little things for me. We planned a get-together with family and friends at a local restaurant where he would officially propose. I don’t know how it happened, but by the night of that dinner, I knew I wanted to marry him. We set a wedding date for September 10th, 2005.
In June, after attending a writers’ conference in Cheyenne, Wyo., I took the bus to Fowler to be with Bill while he hosted a barbecue to celebrate our engagement. At the end of July, after Bill moved to Sheridan, we flew to California to attend a friend’s wedding and visit other acquaintances and relatives, sharing the joy of our upcoming nuptials.
In September, we were married in Grandma’s back yard with a reception at a local hotel. Little did we know what lay ahead.
In January of 2006, just three months after our wedding, Bill suffered the first of two paralyzing strokes. The second stroke came almost exactly a year after the first. We hoped he would get back on his feet after the first, but after the second, we faced the reality that he would be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. After his rehabilitation in a nursing home following both strokes, I cared for him at home until September of 2012, when he became too weak, and he moved back to the nursing home. A month later, he was gone.
After his strokes, our life together was, for the most part, happy. Now, over ten years later, Bill still holds a place in my heart and always will. I’ll forever treasure the memory of the only man who loved me.